Feel your pain dude am going through the same thing regarding time, my fix was to buy the missus a sup. She gets the morning off to paddle while i take the kid to the pool and i get the aftenoon off when the wind picks up.

My situation: 2 kids now 6 and 8 y.o.

My strategy:

1) My wife sails and kite. I have negotiated for a minimum of 1 session (about half a day) per week and she sails once a week. I usually go kiting on my own but from time to time we do a family session (in addition to my individual session). I take the kids on the board and everyone has fun.

2) I'm teaching my 8 y.o. to kite.

3) We often go on family camping/kiting trips. When the kids are old enough, you can keep an eye on them while you kite.

4) To keep fit: good diet + bodyweight exercise about once a week when the kids are in bed. I use the app 'SWORKIT'. I haven't had to compromise on sweets and alcohol yet. I eat at least half a chocolate/biscuit box a day and drink about 2-3 standards drinks a day and so far it's been working pretty well. But I'm expecting I'll have to compromise a bit more as I get older (I'm 38).

5) I always go kiting with friends so that I can socialise and kite at the same time. It saves time, more fun, makes me feel less guilty and makes the misses more comprehensive :-)

6) I make sure we spend quality family time and help the misses when I'm not on the water

7) I stopped running after money and promotions.

Result after a few years:
- I can kite regularly with no drama when I come back home
- I can enjoy my passion with my friends and my family
- both my wife and I have their time to blow off the steam
- the kids are out most of the time having fun doing physical activities
- we made lots of good mutual friends in the kite community
- I'm still fit after the 2 kids (good for injury prevention!)
- I have built a strong bound with my kids

So no, kite and kids are not mutually exclusive. Give it a bit of time to find your balance, put in place some sort of routine with your family and find a way to keep the motivation for exercises. If evenings don't work, what about the morning exercises?

One thing I learned: if you don't sort this out yourself, no-one else will do it for you. You need to consistently work on that balance/routine. If you do it right, everything will get much easier. If you let it slip, it gets harder to rectify to the point that a lot of people either break up or stop kiting/sports.

bramber said..

You provide a beacon of hope! What is the best age to start teaching them? My eldest is 2.5.

The answer really is when the kid is ready. You know it when they start having fun and getting stoked about all these very little achievements they do. Kiting can be intimidating for kids ... fear will drop the fun factor. Most kids don't think like adults, they do not understand that investing time in things they don't like or don't want to do (cold water, walking on sea weed, etc.) will have long term benefits. If it is not funny or if it is scary, they will just not want to do it. So they need to have fun and be comfortable during every step of their progression.

At 2.5 years, they can start playing with a normal/training kite. See how he likes it. If you can see there is a lot of interest, try to encourage him paying with it from time to time. If not, he is not ready yet.

All you need to do is to make equipment available (trainer kite), give him opportunities to use the equipment, encourage him when he is doing good, support him when he is not doing good, push a little bit but not too much.

Set the standards before you have kids and don't give in. Go kiting every day it is windy. The Mrs will get pissed off but after a while she will get used to it. It will just be expected that if the wind is up you will be kiting. Kids are 10 and 11 and I'm not divorced (yet).

lynxmo0 said..
My situation: 2 kids now 6 and 8 y.o.

My strategy:

1) My wife sails and kite. I have negotiated for a minimum of 1 session (about half a day) per week and she sails once a week. I usually go kiting on my own but from time to time we do a family session (in addition to my individual session). I take the kids on the board and everyone has fun.

2) I'm teaching my 8 y.o. to kite.

3) We often go on family camping/kiting trips. When the kids are old enough, you can keep an eye on them while you kite.

4) To keep fit: good diet + bodyweight exercise about once a week when the kids are in bed. I use the app 'SWORKIT'. I haven't had to compromise on sweets and alcohol yet. I eat at least half a chocolate/biscuit box a day and drink about 2-3 standards drinks a day and so far it's been working pretty well. But I'm expecting I'll have to compromise a bit more as I get older (I'm 38).

5) I always go kiting with friends so that I can socialise and kite at the same time. It saves time, more fun, makes me feel less guilty and makes the misses more comprehensive :-)

6) I make sure we spend quality family time and help the misses when I'm not on the water

7) I stopped running after money and promotions.

Result after a few years:
- I can kite regularly with no drama when I come back home
- I can enjoy my passion with my friends and my family
- both my wife and I have their time to blow off the steam
- the kids are out most of the time having fun doing physical activities
- we made lots of good mutual friends in the kite community
- I'm still fit after the 2 kids (good for injury prevention!)
- I have built a strong bound with my kids

So no, kite and kids are not mutually exclusive. Give it a bit of time to find your balance, put in place some sort of routine with your family and find a way to keep the motivation for exercises. If evenings don't work, what about the morning exercises?

One thing I learned: if you don't sort this out yourself, no-one else will do it for you. You need to consistently work on that balance/routine. If you do it right, everything will get much easier. If you let it slip, it gets harder to rectify to the point that a lot of people either break up or stop kiting/sports.

40 was when despite being rather lean some body fat built up around the belly, just so ever slightly covering the six pack. Can still see my feet which is great, and can see my abs (not after dinner though). 46 now and hate not being able to just eat unhealthy like I used to. So I think it gets a bit harder, more training required, and looking at the diet at least somewhat.
Good point regarding work life balance. Working too many hours and adding stress is what makes you fat (and unhealthy) as well.

THE PIN PULLER said..


Get them out young our fella is flying on his 1m single line. He loves everything about kiting. It's now to the point if the trees are moving he's like. It's windy..... DADDYS GOING KITESURFING. Don't have any more kid I wreckin is the key. Tie a knot in that bad boy of yours.

Please note
YES I KNOW IM GOING BALD fuxxxrs !!!

That mesa camp Puller?

work less hours and be comfortable with less income. We don't all need double story houses with two cars you know?

Underoath said..
Birth of my new Son 10 months ago is taking its toll.

Life is awesome, but I just don't have the time to exercise anymore.

Leave for work at 7, back at 6. Help with the misses around the house and I am wrecked.

Any tips?>

Move back to WA and stop blaming the wife n kids,mine never see me.

Plummet said..

drewpweiner said..
work less hours and be comfortable with less income. We don't all need double story houses with two cars you know?

That's easy to say but pretty damn hard when you have kids man.

Spot on and unless one of you works in the city or walking distance the majority of families need 2 cars and a half decent yet modest house in perth is still going to cost 500k so thats like $650 a week gone in mortgage repayments. Then there's maintenance and insurance for your house, cars and perhaps health... I must have paid Dr Magee at Joondalup nearly 10k in the last 3 or so years just to bring my girls into the world.

Then you look at all the stuff kids can do but the most important is swimming. We live on an island where kids drown daily so i've been taking my 2.5yo daughter most weeks since she was 4 months old. $17 a lesson but her ability in the water is significantly better than the vast majority of kids her age. Most are still afraid to go under water or even jump. Now it's $36 a week my youngest is 6 months old. Costs add up very quickly.

Easy to say work less and kite more but most of us with young families need the money. My wife is great, she doesnt care if i kite on my days off so i try and do the right thing because shes working just as hard looking after 2 kids and running a household but long gone are the days of knocking off at 3pm to go kiting.

Faaarrrk seabreeze got shyte.

At least ya not banging on about riding wheelie bikes I suppose but jeez